Posts by Chris

Irrelevant

It's irrelevant really, the whole question comes down to: do you trust Microsoft? From my point of view, that's a resounding NO. Give Microsoft control of all my data? I shudder to think! As for the corporate 'decision-makers'... If Microsoft sold a POS in a box and told them it really smelled nice, they'd buy it anyway.

Everything Microsoft does has only one purpose: lock you into their Windows and Office products.

There's a reason for everything

Look, as a trade-off for getting exclusivity with the OEM's, they promised their hardware partners Vista would be BIG enough so people would have to buy new machines. It's a sad thing, but that's exactly what's been happening. Unfortunately for them, not everybody has an IQ of 50 and people are starting to know that there are other alternatives out there that work just as well (or better) on their old computers. The fact people are sticking with XP is not because they 'love' it, just pure and simple economics.

Personally, I wouldn't touch Vista with a bargepole. People should completely ignore it and move on.

The fact that when I go to a computer shop and see about 20 machines for sale/display, ALL with Vista, tells me that something wrong is going on here... it should be illegal to sell a computer with an OS without giving the consumer a choice. In any other branch of retail, this coupling would be met with total consumer outrage. So, why is it not like that with computers?

Haha, good stuff

Excellent piece, had a good laugh ;-)

On a side-note: these days, if you install eg. Mandriva or PCLinuxOS, there is nothing to set up. Installing these is many times easier than getting for instance XP to work from scratch. The reason Windows 'seems' easier is because in a computer shop, you get the machine with Windows pre-installed.

You really see an 'average Joe User' install XP from a cd, install/download/configure all his hardware drivers, upgrade to XP SP2, download/set up antivirus/malware protection/firewalling software?? I don't think so!

@Brad

Hi Brad,

Did you wake up one morning and knew exactly how Windows worked? Wow, impressive stuff.

More to the point: I do believe that people that are satisfied with Windows should use it. Hell, I use MacOSX, Win2000, WinXP, PCLinuxOS, SimplyMEPIS, CentOS and Mandriva2008. Why, because that sort of thing interests me. Windows is purely at work (developer), and the rest of the OS's is purely at home for fun and learning.

If you start up Ubuntu and don't give it a proper chance to get to know it, you base your decision that it isn't any good on nothing much really. Maybe you just didn't like the look of it?

I've been using Linux since RedHat 5.0, and believe me, it has been infinitely more fun than using Windows. You can make it look and behave exactly as you want, everything can be changed to how you personally like it and the amount of new software you can install and use for free is mind-boggling. But hey, to each his own.

If you want an 'easier' way of trying Linux, give PCLinuxOS a try, running that one is a no-brainer for those who can't be bothered too much, but would still like to give Linux a try.

Last thought: Ubuntu is not the only Linux out there. Depending on your hardware/knowledge/time, another distribution might fit you better.

What?

Uncle Fester says: "When all's said and done, a bunch of those PHP applications will be running at high scale and in production for a long time to come."

Oh yes, come on, don't make me laugh! Let's see how quickly they can replace all the PHP scripts with .NET and Silverlight. Because that's what this takeover is all about in the first place, pushing Silverlight down people's throats, wether they like it or not.

Silent Steve knows it, the 'pull' days for Microsoft are long gone, what's left is 'push', 'push', 'push'.

I'd really like to have an icon with Steve doing the 'monkey boy' dance. Would have been appropriate here.

Not a chance

Why would anyone want to switch to Microsoft online apps? I don't know, and neither do they probably... Anything of theirs you would want to use is just there to tie you in with their OS and Office bundle. Once you taste the freedom of using open, cross-platform stuff, there is no way back really, unless you suddenly become thick.

Can't say I really care about Yahoo! being taken over by MS, as I don't use their sites either. As far as competing with Google, I don't think MS has what it takes, unless they can start thinking differently (no pun intended).

I'm perfectly happy with my Mac and Linux computers and online email from Google, Browsersync add-on for Firefox, calendar, maps, etc... Can't see that change easily in the near future.

What?

Excel was always a target

It's laughably easy to write a 'virus' in Excel. Writing a vb macro and calling it 'autoexec' will do the trick - open the file and the code executes. People should always have macros disabled by default.

I'm still using Office97, works fine and whatever function was missing that I needed, I've already written and added it to it. We use for instance a complex calculation for adding a check-digit to our codenumbers, so an add-in with the function does the trick.

Microsoft has a habbit of always breaking previous functionality and/or file formats - good example is Access. I have never had a valid reason to upgrade from 97 to a newer version. Anyone can think of one?

The one thing that really ticks me off is people always using excel for other stuff than spreadsheets. You wouldn't believe what it's used for! Designing standard letters for printing, using it for storing translations, using it for configuration files for websites. To top it all, I once saw a stupid bint at the office use a pocket calculator to fill in the values in an excel-sheet... give me a break. Some people shouldn't use a computer really. And then we're surprised they open any file they receive by mail?

A matter of responsibility

Another matter is what just happened here: M$ has just given the responsibility over to you for using their crap code. You were warned, they wrote it, it is full of holes, but you were told and there's no need to complain afterwards, despite you knowing the code was insecure, you installed the registry hack anyway.

No thanks

I've been developing software for years now, and most of the programs I work on have a database back-end. These are mainly located on AS/400 machines, and then also some in MySQL (or similar) and some in simpler databases like Access files.

I also program in about 6 or 7 different languages as I not only write new stuff but also maintain some legacy apps, so it depends on what I'm making and where it has to run. Believe me, SQL is a godsend. Whatever system I'm working on/with, I can always get to the databases in the same way. SQL is a cross-platform standard, fast, simple to learn and powerful.

Now, I had a look at the LINQ samples, and as far as I can tell, for an array with a small amount of numbers in it, it can have it's uses. For querying a database with lots of tables and millions of records? Hah! forget it. Just look at the samples, first you have the "GetProductList()" function which gets ALL your data to your client, and then the piece of LINQ, which looks like some weird sort of iteration construct, gets you the records you need. Who in his right mind thought thàt was a good idea?? Anyway, can we also see what's in the GetProductList() function? Some good old SQL maybe ;-)

No wonder Vista moves like a dead donkey...

Anyway, typical isn't? Replace a standard that can be used anywhere with some one vendor technology. Mmm, now where did we hear that one before?

Thanks for that, I needed cheering up this morning

I wasn't in a very good mood this morning, didn't have the best night and then I open Firefox and find this little gem. Hehe, that brightened up my morning.

"users of its new service can only create or edit online documents if they have Office software already installed on their machines" --> that is going to keep me chuckling all day for sure. Come on, what aboslute king of the morons came up with that one. The whole point of having documents in an online app is because it gives you the freedom to create and edit, WHEREVER you are and INDEPENDANT OF THE OS. You get it? That's exactly why Microsoft is never going to be a serious online player, because it clashes with their monopolistic business plan. The freedoms you get from online apps is exactly the freedoms they do NOT want you to have.

But, as someone said in an earlier comment: one born every minute... so this kakamimi plan might of course work for those people.

@ Antoinette Lacroix

The problem would not so much be the fact that car radio's would already be built-in in every car, but that the manufacturer would make sure that no other car radio would function properly in the car. THAT is the main problem. Microsoft will not ever cough up the necessary interoperability protocol information because it would mean that their vendor lock-in wouldn't work anymore, and that's their main business tactic. It is also true that 99% of people using computers haven't got a clue/don't care about this. When you walk into a computer shop and you see 25 screens working, all with Vista on it, and NO other choice, THAT is the problem. I am amazed every day that people can walk into that shop and see this as a normal situation. Baffling... the brainpower of spider-monkeys, just like Bill Gates said.

It's like going to the butcher's for meat and the butcher is saying: what would you like to eat today? We have everything as long as it is pork-chops you want. So, pork-chops it is then?

God people, wake up from time to time, look around and try to use some common sense!

So?

You choose to use Windows, so stop whinging about it already. Get a Mac, or just install a free OS over it, there are many to choose from. Oh, and ask for your money back, there are a lot of better uses for it instead of helping to maintain an illegal monopolist.

Works?

Has anyone ever used this monstrosity anyway? I've been using computers since the 80's, and I have never even met anyone that I know used MS Works...

Want a nice working alternative? Use an easy Linux distro like for instance PCLinuxOS and use openOffice.org. That's probably more than you're ever likely to need. I have that combo running on my old Thinkpad T23 with 256 Mb ram and it works like a charm.

No no no and no

No software patents! There is not a single good reason to have software patents. On the other hand, there are bad ones enough (patent trolls, corporate types engaging in patent blackmail, FUD, market monopolies, ...)

In case they lobby this into existence anyway (and as usual they will), patents should be non-transferable so they cannot be used as a commodity, which is not the purpose of a patent anyway - you know: "protect the original inventor"... yeah right!

Dear oh dear

not exactly true

You say:

>>Another good example: Google automatically detecting the user’s country from the IP address, automatically serving up the right language page for that country<<

Well David, that is one of my biggest annoyances with websites. I always to prefer them in English, and without being asked, a lot of sites switch to 'my' language. Most annoying and definately 'sucky'!!

Hypocritical EU

Politicians are also hypocrits. They're being lobbied like mad by the music industry on this subject.

What needs to be done is let all music be DRM-free, end of all discussions. What the RIAA hates is that they have to talk to Apple now, and it's Steve Jobs that tells them they can't put their prices up like they would like to do. That's why they would like everyone to use Fairplay, so their influence gets a lot bigger and Steve Jobs' influence gets so diluted they don't have to listen to him anymore.

The same thing would happen with no DRM on the songs, but then the RIAA control-freaks are no longer in control, and then they can't see the difference between a copied song and a 'genuine' one. That means they have to stop their hobby of sueing innocent and hardworking people. They're screwing their customers and their artists, so enough already.